


Light

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:59:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom upright is a quiet affair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light

He came to Venice, and after two weeks he couldn't imagine going back  
to England ever again.  There was more sun, and it was warmer, but he  
could have lived without either of those.  But the water.  This house.    
Italy is so old.  Quite romantic, if he feels like admitting to  
feeling something so un-British.  When he was a boy, playing expanded  
scales with the big leather-bound dictionaries piled under him and no  
way to reach the pedals, he used to think about places like this.    
Defined by music and light.  Where the things you dreamed of could  
expand to fill the available space, and the grandeur overcame your  
inability to ever be quite rich.

Peter's aware of his Britishness in this country, but he can't quite  
bring himself to give it up.  If he stopped being British, he could  
only be a false Italian, and he isn't quite prepared for the  
pretension that goes with such a transition.  And as long as he's  
foreign, he can continue to be delighted with the things he finds  
here.

His house, which, damp as it is, is at the heart of the things that  
make him happy.  The clear sound of the piano when he plays in the  
small hours of the morning.  Bach.  The graceful stretches of notes  
that draw his hands outward against the keys.  Warm sweaters against  
the damp.  Tom.

Tom wrapped around him in this stripped-down Venetian bedroom.  Naked  
walls because he's here so seldom, but the bareness of the room gives  
him this immense and wonderful sense of Tom's body.

Tom upright is a quiet affair.  His slouch locks him away from people  
except when he's seated at the piano, and then he doesn't admit anyone  
into the space between himself and the instrument.  Even his  
occasional bursts of self-confidence have a brittle edge to them.

Tom laid out in their bed is different.  Pale under the first-layer  
tan he picked up on the southern beaches.  Fine-skinned and freckled.    
Soft, slightly curving belly.  Lovely legs, marked with hair so pale  
that Peter can detect it only by touch.  A crooked smile that lights  
when he's on his back, propped up slightly to watch the man kissing  
him from sternum to navel.  Radiant.

Tom laid out under him, both of them naked and kissing.  There's a  
long list of things he doesn't like, and sex like animals is high on  
the list, but he's never encountered anything as wonderful as Tom's  
body wrapped around his.  The warmth of it.  Warmth like the first  
time he came to Italy, when he realized that there were places where  
the sun shone constantly and that the chill could be kept out forever.    
Slow and very tender.  Kisses around his mouth, and his jaw, and his  
ears, and the base of his throat.  Tom is nothing if not thorough.    
Tom must know every inch of his skin by now.

They made love this afternoon like that.  Their legs so tangled that  
his feet struck flesh and he couldn't name it for certain as his or  
Tom's.  Music on his ribcage from Tom's fingers.  Slowly into his  
mouth, and nestling under his heart.

Afterwards, with the sheets tangled around their hips, he pulled Tom  
into the hollows of his body and held him, rubbing his lips against  
the back of Tom's neck.  Told him about those first English days when  
he was just starting to learn where the piano could take him.  When he  
was always cold.  The kiss his tutor from the Conservatory gave him  
when he was twelve.  How he used to soak in hot baths all day, trying  
to get warm.  How the house was cold to keep the coal bill down.

He gets a shudder out of Tom with that one.  He's well aware that  
Tom's poverty is a deeper thing than he's ever revealed, but touching  
that weak place is a process of days and weeks, trying to soften the  
armour with sun and the warmth of his body.

One big window and the late afternoon light pouring through it.  Tom's  
thin enough that Peter can wrap both arms around his waist and just  
hold him.  Knees up behind Tom's knees, holding both of them semi-  
fetal.  Later, when he starts to lose the feeling in his arm, he can  
lift it up, lay it along the back of Tom's neck and hold his skull in  
the palm of that hand.  Cradling it until it opens.


End file.
